Birth Right
by poeticgrace
Summary: The truth comes out the day that Carly's daughter is born. JARLY ONE SHOT.


Carly Jacks should have been on cloud nine right now. After months of careful planning and constant concern, she had finally given birth to a beautiful little girl that had defined her dreams ever since she was fifteen. All she had ever wanted was a daughter, and even with her wonderful pair of sons to fill up her heart, she had always known that something was missing. This little girl should have been the answer to all her prayers and in so many ways she was. However, there was one complication that prevented this from being one of the best days of her life – the truth.

A soft knock at the door shook Carly out of her private pity party. She knew even before she looked up who it was. Her body had always been able to sense him before he would make his presence known. Tears glinted in her soft blue eyes as she met his unwavering gaze. "Oh, Jase," she managed to choke out before burying her face in her hands. He was across the room to her in a matter of seconds, pulling her into his arms without disrupting the various tubes and monitors attached to her tired body.

"Hey, it's okay, I'm here," he murmured tenderly as he stroked her hair. Jason rested his chin atop her head and let her sob into the soft cotton of his black tee. Jax was no where to be found, and Michael and Morgan had been sent home with their father immediately after the baby was born. Carly didn't want to see anyone. Jason's first concern had been post-postpartum depression, recalling memories of those hard weeks after Michael was born. "I'm here now, Carly, you're going to be fine."

Minutes passed before she finally drew her head back and peered up at him beneath wet lashes. Carly didn't know how to do this. She had been a master of manipulation her entire life, long before she showed up in Port Charles and sent the small town in a tailspin. She had always figured out a way to angle it so things went her way. That kind of bold confidence had only grown when Jason had decided that he would always be on her side. Having your own personal superhero tended to make you feel invincible. Even during her hard pregnancy, she had known that everything was going to be okay. When no one else believed, when others wanted her to make a different choice, Carly had all the faith in the world that this was going to work out. She just hadn't expected it to feel quite like this.

Jason tilted her chin slightly so that their eyes met. All of the sadness in the world swelled in her defeated gaze, and it broke Jason's heart to even look at her. He always knew how to fix everything for Carly, but he didn't know how to make this right. "What can I do?" he asked uselessly. He should have known how to take away the pain in her eyes, but he needed her to tell him what she needed.

"Take me to see her," Carly said softly. Jason ignored the twinge in his heart when he realized that she hadn't called the beautiful little girl in the nursery her daughter. Instead, he retrieved the wheelchair stashed in the corner of her dimly lit room and helped her slide into the seat. Her hand rested over his on her should for a moment. They held each other's stare for a moment before she nodded her silent permission.

Nadine Crowell was hunched over the bassinet where Carly's daughter slept. The nurse made a few notations on her chart as Jason pushed Carly into the room. They were both covered with the protective coverings required for nursery visitors. "Hello, Mrs. Jacks, I was just checking on your little girl here," she announced happily. "She is doing just perfect. Her breathing and temperature are exactly where they should be. She just went back to sleep, but if you would like to hold her now..."

"Can Jason...?"

The nurse waved her hand dismissively, indicating that Carly didn't need to finish the question. She simply lifted the beautiful sleeping baby from her bed and carried her over to where Jason stood. Nadine arranged the infant in his arms, pulling the soft blanket up around her face. "I am just going to go check on my other patients. I should be back shortly. If you need anything else, just push the button on the wall by the door, and someone will be right in."

Jason meant to thank the blonde nurse but couldn't seem to find the words as he stared down at the perfect little girl in his arms. He could only ever remember feeling like this twice before, both on the nights that he held Michael and Jake for the first times. Those times had been different. They had been his sons, at least at the time. He had no real connection to this little girl other than the fact that she was Carly's. It could have been different – should have been different – but it wasn't. This was Carly's daughter with Jax.

Carly leaned over Jason's shoulder as he sat in the rocking chair at her side. The baby's wide blue eyes opened and blinked a few times as she looked up at the two adults hovering over her. Jason gasped audibly before grinning madly. Carly knew that look firsthand. Jason had just fallen in love with her daughter. "Isn't she beautiful?" he asked softly, stroking the downy hair atop her head. "God, Carly, look at her. She's stunning. Your daughter is absolutely stunning."

"Our daughter."

The silence in the room was deafening. "Our daughter?" Jason repeated, not sure that he had heard her right. He knew that she didn't mean this the way that she thought of Michael and Morgan as his. She meant this in the way that Jake was his child. There had always been a small chance, a tiny sliver of hope that no one else knew existed, but Jason had never let himself believe it.

Tears slid down Carly's face as she looked at her best friend and then at their daughter. It had been one night after a lot of drinks and playing pool. No one knew about it, and they had vowed to put it behind them. It was a few months after Michael was shot. Jason was still reeling from losing Elizabeth and Michael over one stupid mistake. Carly hadn't been herself for months. She'd come to him in the middle of the night, mascara streaked across her face and a bag of bottled beer in hand. They had numbed the pain in loud music and drunken laughter and sweaty sex on his living room floor. She had been gone when he woke up the next morning, and neither of them had spoken a word of that night since. Jason had assumed that the baby wasn't his when she and Jax had excitedly announced it a few months later. He had played the dutifully happy best friend and tried his best to just forget about it.

"Our daughter," she confirmed finally. "I thought that I could do this, that I could hide it. I didn't want to, but I knew how you would react if you found out that I was carrying your child." He could barely make out her words through the tears. Carly reached down and stroked the baby's cheek gently. "I mean, she could just as easily be Jax's daughter. All three of us have blonde hair and blue eyes. No one would have ever had to know."

"Carly," Jason said bluntly, his voice thick with sadness. He could understand her pulling this on anyone else, but it was hard to believe that she could knowingly and willingly do this to him. He was supposed to be different, her safe place and the one person she was always honest with. "How could you not tell me?"

She looked down at her daughter sadly and shrugged. "I was selfish, Jase," she admitted. "I didn't want you to write me out of your life like you did when you found out that Elizabeth was pregnant with your child. I couldn't handle the thought of this little girl not knowing her father. I figured if you never knew that she was your daughter, you couldn't put this divide between us. We couldn't lose you. I know that you would think you were protecting us, but I can't do this without you. My life doesn't work very well when you're not in it. We both needed you to be here for us."

As twisted as her logic was, Jason could actually understand where she was coming from. Had he known, it was certainly very possible that he would have never invested himself in Carly's pregnancy. He would have turned away from her in a vain attempt to protect both his best friend and their little girl. As hard as it was to watch Lucky Spencer raise Jake, Jason could live with it because he thought it was for the best. He would have made that same sacrifice for their daughter.

"What changed?"

"She did," Carly said affectionately as she watched their little girl drift back to sleep. With every movement over the past few months, Carly had known more and more that she wasn't going to be able to hide this. It was going to come out eventually, and when it did, she wanted it to be on her terms. However, as soon as she looked into that little girl's eyes and saw her best friend staring back at her, she knew that she couldn't hide this anymore. She might be the only one who could see Jason in the perfect infant, but she wouldn't deny his rightful place as her father any more. "I can't lie to you anymore and I won't lie to her. She needs her father – her real father. I'm sorry that I lied, Jase, more than I have ever been sorry about anything in my life. I just want you love her."

"I already loved her before, this doesn't change that," he promised as he shifted the baby in his arms so that he could reach for Carly's hands. "I understand why you did what you did. I wish you had trusted me enough to decide for myself, but maybe it's for the best. I've already fallen so completely in love with this little girl. I've tried to leave you before, Carly, we both know that I'm not capable of staying away from you for very long."

Leaning her head on his shoulder, she breathed a sigh of relief. She was sure that there was an argument and a lecture coming later, but for right now, she just wanted to sit here quietly with her family. "I told Jax."

Jason's heart dropped. He had mostly forgotten about the Aussie until now. "And?"

Carly's silence told him everything that he needed to know. He wasn't sure if it was Jax or Carly who ended the marriage, but it was most definitely over. The two of them should have been celebrating the birth of their first child together right now instead of heading toward a divorce. Jason would have felt sadder if he wasn't so completely thrilled that maybe he would finally get to have Carly as his own. "I'm sorry," he apologized quietly. He was sure that this probably hurt her at least a little.

"I'm not," she retorted without looking up at him. "I mean, I'm sorry that I hurt him but this little girl has to come first."

Jason wasn't entirely sure how they were going to do this, make the transition from being best friends leading separate lives to partners raising a family together. They had done it once, though, when neither of them had a clue how it was supposed to turn out. Since that time, they had found Sonny and Courtney, Jax and Sam. Michael had ended up exactly like Sonny, while Morgan was as quiet and soulful as his Uncle Jason. And now they had this beautiful little girl, with her bright blue eyes and blonde fuzz for hair, and it finally felt complete. It finally felt like it was enough.

"What's her name?"

Carly smiled up at him, her eyes twinkling in the fluorescent lighting of the hospital nursery. "I'm sticking with the name I picked out two months ago," she professed happily. "Jaycee Emily Morgan."

"Jaycee, huh?" he thought. "Wonder where you got that?"

"Jake carried your initials, and I wanted to at least give our little girl that same right," she explained. Besides, Morgan carried his name because Jason meant everything to Carly. It only made sense that she would name her only daughter after him, too. "I didn't decide on Emily until I was sure that I was going to tell you. I thought maybe you might like that."

"I love it," he agreed, his mind briefly falling on his baby sister. He still missed her so much that it hurt sometimes, and right now, he would give anything to have her here to see him getting to finally be a father. "You know what's my favorite part?"

"Hmm?"

"Morgan."

"Yeah?" she asked. "I kind of just decided on that."

"Well, it sounds good on her," he agreed as Nadine came back into the room. She told them that it was probably time for little Jaycee to get some sleep. Carly brushed a kiss on her daughter's forehead before Jason handed her over to Nadine. "I love you, little girl, you hear that?" The baby's flickered open for a moment before closing again. "Your mommy and I will be back very soon."

Jason and Carly waited outside the nursery for a moment, watching as Nadine tucked her back in her bassinet. "You know we're going to have to tell Sonny and the boys, your mom and the Quartermaines," he told her. She only nodded and reached up for his hand. "And we're going to have to get you divorced so that our daughter's parents both have the same name."

"Jase, you don't have to..."

"Yes, I do," he disagreed, stopping her short. "We should have done this years ago."

Jason should have hated her, Carly knew, but that had never been his style. Instead, he had agreed to blindly follow her into the dark years ago when she had showed up over eight months pregnant at his door in the pouring rain, begging for him to be the father of her unborn son. In the years that had passed since then, they had saved each other over and over again. They had built a family that centered around the two of them and the boys, and everyone else in their life had to be happy living on the periphery. He was right; they should have made it permanent years ago. None of that really mattered now. All that mattered was that they were finally going to have a chance. The truth was out there, and just like that, this had become the best day that Carly and Jason had ever known.

**_FIN._**


End file.
